Tom Willis, 78, lives in Middleton. Here he tells how his father went off to war with his five brothers – and only three of them came back alive

The First World War involved suffering for so many families, but I suppose it was just the luck of the draw when it came to who paid the highest price. One thing I do know is that my dad and his brothers, from Moston and Harpurhey, must have been among the unluckiest.

There were six Willis brothers and all of them went to war, but only three of them came home. One of the survivors was my dad, who had lost a leg, and his other two brothers who made it back were also to suffer ongoing health problems as a result of suffering shellshock and being taken prisoner.

My dad’s family had come from Nottingham to Manchester, probably in search of work, in the late 18th century. They lived in Harpurhey but soon moved to a three-up, two-down terrace at Elizabeth Street, Moston. This was to become the real family home, and it was from here that most of the boys left their mum Eliza and went to war - their dad having already died some years earlier.

The first of the boys to sign up was Ernest, a 24-year-old labourer, who was placed with the Rifle Brigade. From his records it looks like he struggled with the discipline of Army life and was soon being punished for daft things like missing parades. Still, he would more than make up for all of that when he got out to the battlefields.

Next to join was Fred, who was 32 and a hat block maker. Fred was single like Ernest and also served with the Rifle Brigade, but with a different battalion to his brother. Fred’s unit actually ended up in action before Ernest’s at a place called Hooge outside of Ypres in Belgium.

He became the first of the brothers to die; just four months after he had first volunteered in England. His body was never recovered and he is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

A month after Fred had signed up, the second youngest of the brothers, 19-year-old Harry, enlisted with the South Lancs. He was a fitter by trade and he left his fiancé and his home in Britain in December 1915.

He was soon in the thick of it in France and saw action at Arras and on the Somme. Harry then found himself in Belgium at a spot called Railway Wood, which was out in front of the town of Ypres. He and a group of his pals were sheltering in a dug-out one night in August 1917 when a German shell landed on top of it, killing Harry and 20 other blokes. A further 23 were wounded by that same shell.

It turned out that Harry had been killed only a few hundred metres from where Fred had died two years earlier, but unlike Fred his body was recovered and he is now buried in a Commonwealth War Graves’ Cemetery at Poelcappelle, Belgium.

By this time the youngest brother had also enlisted, James William. He was just 17 when war broke out and was working as a cotton dyer in Newton Heath.

At the age of 18 he enlisted with the Manchester Regiment and probably lied about his age in order to get in, as his Army records have him down as being 19.

James enlisted just a few weeks after the first of the brothers, Fred, had been killed, and I wonder if that influenced his decision to join-up? There are gaps in his army record that show he spent long periods away from duty, and the explanation seems to be in a claim he made for a disability pension in the years after the war. James had suffered deafness ‘caused by shock’. In other words, he had ‘shellshock’ and his hearing had been badly affected.

The fifth brother into uniform was Thomas, who had moved out of the family home a couple of years earlier and was living at Newburgh Street, Manchester. He was only 21 when he married his sweetheart Elizabeth on August 3, 1914 – the day before Britain went to war.

Thomas, my dad, was an upholsterer and was put with the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He didn’t go overseas until early 1917, and just eight months later he was returning home without one of his legs.

Dad had been among the casualties suffered during a trench raid. He didn’t talk about the war much, but I do remember him saying that he had been out wounded in the open for two days before he was found. Because of how long his wound had been left unattended, gangrene set in and cost him a leg.

The last brother to go to the Western Front was Arthur, who was the oldest. He was 31 at the time of the war, married, living at Lee Road, Harpurhey, and working as a cabinet maker. It seems likely that Arthur didn’t get abroad until late 1916, or even 1917. He was serving with the South Lancs territorials and was most likely taken prisoner during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, when “not a man returned” from his battalion after they had been all-but surrounded. Many had been killed.

Among those who had also been involved at Cambrai, but escaped capture or worse, was the first of the brothers to sign up, Ernest.

He had been out fighting since July 1915 and had been involved in many of the worst battles of the war in Belgium and France, but his ‘luck’ was to run out in February 1918. Ernest was killed by German shelling on the outskirts of Ypres and is today buried in the Bedford House Cemetery, Belgium.

It is hard to know what effect the loss of the three brothers had on the surviving three. Like many men who fought, they did not talk openly to us about it. My dad definitely didn’t.

Dad had moved back into what had been the family home in Moston after the war and was to have three daughters and a son to look after. I was born in 1935 and my mum died a year later. Dad, who was working as an upholsterer, just ‘got on’ with things. He never let his disability keep him from work and even refused free school dinners for us as he considered it a matter of pride and dignity to “provide for my own”. He died in 1951 and is buried in Moston Cemetery.

Arthur returned home in February 1919. His time as a prisoner must have been hard as the Germans were struggling to even feed themselves by this time.

Thankfully, he soon recovered most of his strength in the bosom of a family that grew to four children, two of whom were born during the war and two after. He would remain in Manchester.

James, who suffered from shellshock, was to marry a girl called Ada after the war and had a son called Harry, who was probably named after one of the three brothers who had been lost. The family lived in Ramsbottom, Bury. I remain proud of all of them.

Our newspapers include the flagship Manchester Evening News - Britain's largest circulating
regional daily with up to 130,485 copies - as well as 20 local weekly titles across Greater
Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire.

Free morning newspaper, The Metro, published every weekday, is also part of our portfolio,
delivering more than 200,000 readers in Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester Business Week is the region’s number one provider of business news andfeatures, targeting a bespoke business audience with 12,687 copies every Thursday.

Every month, M.E.N. Media’s print products reach 2.2 million adults, spanning from Accrington
in the north to Macclesfield in the south.